The Renegade of Opshar: Minstrels of Skaythe, #4

By Deby Fredericks

All Berisan wants is a place to hide. The insignificant village of Opshar seems like a perfect haven. Disguised as a beggar, he can lie low and evade the brutal hunter-guards. But Berisan isn't the only one with secrets. Widowed and pregnant, Yamaya struggles to hold the farm she and her husband built, but she can't escape her sordid past. In desperation, she hires the one person who hasn't taken a side in Opshar's murky politics — the beggar, Sand. Common sense tells Berisan to walk away, but his code as a minstrel compels him to help  Yamaya if he can. Soon he faces a decision that challenges every principle he holds. Will he give up the safety of his secrets, or allow another to suffer in his place? 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Deby Fredericks
• Release date: Jun 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781733922760

Deby Fredericks

Deby Fredericks has been a writer all her life, but thought of it as just a fun hobby until the late 1990s. Her first sale, a children's poem, was in 2000. Since then she has published seven fantasy novels through two small presses, and ventured into the realm of self-publishing with her novellas and novelettes.

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THE RENEGADE OF OPSHAR

by Deby Fredericks

Dedication

For Daron, who else?

Indicia

Text © 2021 by Deborah J. Fredericks.

Cover illustration by Tithi Luadthong. Designed by Deborah J. Fredericks using Canva.

All rights reserved.

No generative AI has been used in the conceptualization, development, or drafting of this work.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

Minstrels of Skaythe

Where dark sorcery rules, they seek to restore a forbidden power — hope!

Book I — The Tower in the Mist

Book II — Dancer in the Grove of Ghosts

Book III — The Ice Witch of Fang Marsh

Book IV — The Renegade of Opshar

Book V — Prisoners of the Wailing tower

Book VI — The Tale of the Drakanox

Minstrels of Skaythe (paperback compilation of Books I - III)

Renegades of Skaythe (paperback compilation of Books IV - V)

More by Deby Fredericks

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The Seven Exalted Orders

The Grimhold Wolf

Wee Folk and Wise

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The Magister's Mask

The Necromancer's Bones

Too Many Princes

More by Lucy D. Ford

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Aunt Ursula's Atlas*

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Masters of Air & Fire

*Also available in paperback

The Renegade of Opshar

I — AN INSIGNIFICANT VILLAGE

For as long as he could remember, Berisan had lived by one rule: Don't Get Caught.

And so he found himself in a far corner of Skaythe, playing a two-reed pipe in the futile hope of attracting a coin or two. The oval market plaza had been packed hard by generations of farmers' boots. Berisan crouched there, in the burning sun. He had folded his leather cloak to make a sort of pad, but it wasn't much help. He had to shift, easing the tingle of lost circulation in his folded legs. Even with the cover of a reed hat, he couldn't stop sweating.

Early in the day, he'd managed to catch a couple of coins, but now the noonday heat withered everything. His mouth was too dry to produce more than a few tired notes. Villagers scurried past, intent on their own affairs. No one spared a glance for the beggar in his ragged clothes.

Opshar was an insignificant village, barely visible in the grassy expanse of Pulgoll. That was not all bad. For a renegade mage, always on the run, an insignificant place was what he needed. There was less chance the hunter-guards would sniff him out here. Even if the villagers mostly ignored him, Berisan hoped to scratch up enough coin to pay for a bed in the tavern that dominated the far edge of the plaza. Maybe he could even get a bath that wasn't drenched in the river's chill.

If that failed, Pulgoll still held possibilities. Shark-tooth mountains jutted on both sides of the valley, but the land between was soft and green. Though the farmers guarded their fields against what they assumed was a thieving beggar, but the river offered wild grain, crayfish, turtle eggs, and more.

Berisan just hoped he had run far enough to find a measure of safety. He was tired of the endless road. He longed to hide himself, the way silt-fish did when they burrowed into the mud.

True, there had been signs of bandit activity along the way. A cart at the roadside, broken and burned. Logs stacked on a hill where few other trees grew. What purpose could there be but to block the road for an ambush? Still, none of that was recent. If it had been, Berisan would have wandered elsewhere.

Apricots, Cherries, fresh picked, chanted the young woman in the next space over. She had a blanket spread out, held down by baskets of the self-same fruit. The hot sun was beginning to shrivel them. Occasionally she swept a whisk over the bowls to discourage flies.

Berisan had been trying not to stare. The woman was lovely, with a wide brown face and piercing black eyes. Two glossy braids coiled together on top of her head. Also, he couldn't help noticing how well her breasts filled the tight bodice of her peasant dress. After a while, when she stood to pass over the sold apricots, he had noticed that she was many months pregnant.

You would expect such a beauty to have a man nearby, a husband or lover taking good care of her. Yet she had been alone all morning. Her expression, when no customers were at hand, showed no hope of anyone joining her. Berisan knew better than to get involved with a stranger's business, but he couldn't help feeling a bit of concern for her.

Perhaps because he was a fugitive himself, he began to notice how the woman's almond eyes darted toward any movement. Those quick, wary glances said she was watching for trouble. What was she afraid of?

YAMAYA NEVER KNEW WHAT to expect when she came into Opshar. Her name and face might be known, but she wasn't trusted. It had only been three months since she and Gabrith escaped the mountains in search of a better life for their coming child. They had been lucky to find a farm down the valley, near the Weeping Falls. Though long abandoned, it had a handful of fruit trees still alive. Aulgrip, the village headman, had been glad enough to let them dig the fields there.

Still, three months wasn't nearly enough time to knit themselves into an isolated community. Especially one so at odds with their former ways. Gabrith had made repairs to the old farmer's shack as best he could, but now he was gone. Yamaya was left to tend the sparse fields and make the place fit to raise a baby.

Most days, she didn't mind being alone. People would ask questions, and there were things she didn't want anyone to know. Besides which, the fruit trees wouldn't question her life choices. Still, she needed some things to get by until the sweet potatoes came in. River grain and smoked fish would add to the scanty vegetable harvest. With thread and a bit of cloth, she could sew diapers and patch her peasant dress.

Without Gabrith, there was no one else to do the bartering. So at first light Yamaya had packed her baskets with the last of the apricots and the first of the cherries. It was a long walk up the valley, but the day's trading had been decent. Everyone liked cherries, and they wouldn't grow in the soggy ground by the river. The girl in the fishermen's stall shared a bit of gossip — a first.

Even Aulgrip had asked a few questions about her plans, now that Gabrith was dead. Yamaya meant to stay on. She had nowhere else to go. It was hard for her to tell if Aulgrip liked that answer. His reaction had left Yamaya unsettled. She would be glad enough to pack up her leftover fruit and take it back, to dry for her own use. The only task left for her was to have a word with Gordemir, the carpenter, about getting a cradle made.

In her previous life, Yamaya had developed an instinct for when trouble was near. It pricked at her now. Dark eyes flicked around the square, seeking where it might come from. The townsfolk moved about their business. No one seemed to care about her.

There was that man, next over. An outsider, like her. Yamaya had seen him ogling her, though never for long enough that she could object. He seemed to be nothing but a beggar. Hunched over beneath his woven hat, playing a wandering tune on a two-reed pipe. Untrimmed hair and scruff of beard. Dusty shirt with torn sleeves. Trousers worn down at the cuffs.

Yet he didn't cringe. Beggars always braced for the blows that were sure to come. According to Lillia, the fisherman's daughter, the fellow had been hanging around Opshar for a few days now. Despite the condition of his clothes, he appeared quite fit. Hardly a starved and helpless beggar, to Yamaya's eye.

More, his music was actually melodic. No shrill squeaking from those pipes. Opshar had no good musicians, at least that Yamaya had seen. Their time was better spent fishing or hoeing or weaving or smithing. Early on, the tunes had drawn a few of the townsfolk closer. If they spent a little longer at Yamaya's fruit baskets, she could hardly complain.

All the same, something wasn't quite right. The man could be a spy, sent by the Count of Deeve, over the mountains. Or maybe he worked for the hunter-guards, seeking rumors of rogue mages. Whichever, Yamaya didn't like it. So when his eyes strayed over to her blanket again, she scowled.

What do you want?

Yamaya had spent years perfecting that tone of voice. Most people backed off when she used it. The beggar ducked his